Droplet

A wearable water purification device in the form of a bracelet.

What is it?

In an effort to make safe drinking water available to everyone, we created Droplet: a wearable water purification device in the form of a bracelet. It purifies water for safe drinking in developing countries, where clean water supply levels are low. Droplet is designed for anyone to wear around one’s wrist. It contains a UV purifying light bulb that when placed in a container of collected water, the UV light emitted kills contaminants and disease-causing bacteria in minutes. Droplet is also data driven to help prevent future water-related issues by saving information about water contaminants, bacteria, amounts of water consumed, and location of where a specific water was collected.

How is it used?

Droplet is a bracelet worn on one’s wrist. It can be used individually or shared between multiple people or within a family.

What technologies does it incorporate?

Droplet requires the use of the following technologies:
-Germicidal UV light bulb
-Battery power supply and solar-powered charging hub
-Data capture in the water filtration process
-Microcontroller Board to support USB connection

How does it work?

A single user wears the Droplet bracelet on one’s wrist. After water is collected from the source, the user would fill a container with the water and submerge the Droplet bulb. Droplet mimics the way that a tea bag would rest into a cup or teapot. The UV purifying technology in Droplet purifies the water and collects data about the types of bacteria and contaminants in the water. After a certain period of time, the data can be extracted from the Droplet and used for research and analysis for finding safe drinking water locations. Moreover, doctors would be able to observe and study any occurring symptoms of Droplet wearers. The Droplet data would be able to help track disease outbreaks from water consumption.

Who uses it?

Water consumers in developing countries would wear the Droplet device. Each user would wear a single Droplet bracelet. Doctor and field researchers would use the Droplet device to access the data collected on the device.

Why does it help?

Droplet would make a tremendous impact by making water safe to drink, while collecting bacteria/contaminant data to help prevent water-borne diseases. Doctors and researchers would be able to study and analyze the data to track patterns of human symptoms relating to diseases. Safe water would also be more accessible to communities, by allowing them to reach sources within their geographical location. As water becomes more accessible, women and children are able to spend more time working to earn an income and gaining an education in school.